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New Lower East Side tower
By Carter Horsley   |   From Archives Thursday, July 28, 2005
A Lower East Side skyline is emerging.

Construction is advancing on a 16-story tower at 103-105 Norfolk Street that is being developed by John Carson and Angelo Cosentini and the Hudson Opportunity Fund. Marketing for the units is expected to commence in September.

The tower will have 32 condominium apartments and is known as "Blue at 105 Norfolk Street," a reference to the unusual facade for the project, which has been designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects with SLCE Architects.

A rendering of the building indicates that its upper floors facing Norfolk Street will be angled upwards slight because of setback requirements and that its dark blue facade will have an unusual fenestration pattern.

Tschumi designed a spectacular small bright red undulating facade within a glass cube for the Museum of African Art for a site on Fifth Avenue at 110th Street but is not longer involved with that project.

The Norfolk Street project is due for completion next year. The mid-block development is between Delancey and Rivington Streets and not too far away from the 20-story Hotel on Rivington Street that opened last year as a major new Lower East Side landmark.

The Norfolk Street project is separated by a one-story building that houses a nightclub from another striking new condominium project, the "Switch" building at 109 Norfolk Street, a 7-story building now under construction designed by Narchitects where the floors zig-zag and forth with gentle angles creating a lively facade and a new twist on bay windows. It is just to the south of the very pleasant, red-brick Asian Americans for Equality Community Center at 111 Norfolk Street designed by Victor M. Morales, a building that was completed last year.
Architecture Critic Carter Horsley Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.